The Role Of The Christian Family:

A Theology of the Body

(A comprehensive approach)

What happens in the body is a reflection of what happens in the soul

Introduction

Culture of Life Vs. Culture of death

       Theology of The Body is the study of how God reveals his mystery through the human body. God created man to be nurtured in a family environment surrounded and guided by His love. God is spirit. He lives in us, experiences life with us, and displays His divine nature through us in the material world. God is felt in life as He is not found in death. The attempt to describe the experience of God in life is as inert and unmerited as attempting to describe the experience of love, or something new, say the taste of a fruit, to someone who never experienced it. In this effort, it’d perhaps made of more justice to fall into the poetry that allows the exploitation of some art imagery recourse. It is also like trying to explain the significance of having a father in the life of someone who has never had it; it’ll perhaps be of more use in the learning task, just to become one. Therefore, to know God implies the humbleness of a student at learning something new, the patience of an artist at redoing toward excellence, and the courage of adventurers at trying different ways. To know God is but a transforming experience, of no return to the former state, as when a woman gives birth becomes a mother, even if she loses, or denies her child, she won’t cease of being a mother for the rest of her life.

      John Paul II emphasis on experiencing God and His power also comes from John of the Cross. For John of the Cross, the “Great mystery” should penetrate and transform the heart, not merely the intellect. (C. West, 2007)

     *  People understand a concept with the mind, but encounter and love with the heart. (C. West, 2007)

      * A prayerful study of TOB is not only “informational” but also “transformational” (C. West, 2007)

       * “Through the fact that the Word of God became flesh, the body entered theology through the main door” (TOB 23:4)
    *  If we wish to benefit fully from the TOB we should seek not only to open our minds to its intellectual riches but also our hearts to its life-changing power. (C. West, 2007)

 * God is a whole being, it is necessary the use of art resources to experience it regardless of the use of the intellect, since one may experience the presence of God through the use of understanding means, other than the human-made words.

God is the spring of life since everything good comes from Him. God is free; His motion cannot be predicted nor manipulated.

* Through the Cartesian detachment of mind and soul in its pursuit of seeking the truth and true wisdom in the sciences, man dismissed the use of God from the human experience producing the basis for what we regard as the modern person.

      *  I revered our theology and aspired as much as anyone to reach heaven: but being given assuredly to understand that the way is not less open to the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that the revealed truths which lead to heaven are above our comprehension, I did not presume to subject them to the impotency of my reason; and I thought that in order competently to undertake their examination, there was need of some special help from   heaven, and of being more than man. (R. Descartes, 1637)

      *  For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world. (R. Descartes, 1637)

     *  …thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that " I," that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is. (R. Descartes, 1637)

 Modern philosophy gives priority to the need of a method to validate anything humans create, enhancing the rewards of performance as a model of success paving so the way of the utilitarian culture in where we live. The prioritization of life as a result of sole human planification and design brought about the leading of the world culture to the verge of suicide.

If human civilization is incapable of creating itself, it must acknowledge a greater being that originated it. If God gave life to Adam by breathing life in him (Gen 2:7), and to his offspring, humans are inherently sanctified since God is Holy and everything that He creates belongs to Him and shares His nature (Ex 3:5, 1Pet 1:15). Separating mind and spirit is a human methodology to detach the idea of God, to deny His influence, and to ignore His divine rights on the human creation. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the human body spiritualizes it existence, allowing God to partake in the human experience.

     *  “The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation” (CCC, 2563)

God is love and abundantly generous; He gave us the gift of life. Love involves the gift of self.

      *  “God has revealed His innermost secret: God Himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange” (CCC, 221)

  * The Spousal meaning of our bodies refers to the call to love as God inscribed in the human body as male and female, in doing so, we’ll fulfill the meaning of our being and existence.  The freedom of the gift: ‘For the Man cannot give himself away if he doesn’t possess himself, if he is not in the control of himself and his desires’ (TOB 134).

To restore the wellbeing of the human experience, and turn the Culture of Death to the Culture of Life, is needed to humanize what was de-humanized by returning to its body what belongs to it: God’s spirit.

        *  We are not spirits trapped in a body. We are body-persons; incarnate spirits. (C. West, 2007)

       *  There will be no renewal of the Church and of the world without a renewal of marriage and the family. (C. West, 2007)

       *  There will be no renewal of the marriage and the family without a return to the full truth of God’s plan for the body and sexuality. (C. West, 2007)

       * At the beginning of the third Christian millennium, it is time for the Church and the world to “cross the threshold of hope” into the new springtime. It is time to make our ‘passover” from a culture of death to a culture of life. (C. West, 2007)

About this project

Not taking but giving is the way of life

The present proposal encloses a multimedia and arts project that attempts to respond to the decaying of the family institution related to the crisis of the role of genres that modern times has brought about seduced by the reigning utilitarian, self-centered culture milieu.

This multimedia and arts project proposal is a compilation of sources; artists and authors, based mainly on the thematic of the general audiences delivered by Saint John Paul II between 1979 and 1984, later compiled in the book Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, about the unity, indissolubility, and purpose of marriage, and that essentially aspire to reconcile the tripartite natural functioning of spirit, heart, and mind as it was originally designed in the human body.

This project is composed of the 6 units that divide the TOB work, to be delivered in the form of:
o   speeches at a public event,

   o encouraging thematic discussions to connect the personal experience with the attendants,

   o  encompassing with  music and performances when available to cheer social engagement,
 o Webcast through live stream media to non-attendant subscribers,  
 o   Extracts edited for TV Cable webseries supporting the new evangelization through the arts, including additional interviews with the speakers, artists, supporters, and enthusiasts on the culture of life.

   o   internet storage for worldwide access.

Each unit encloses:

   o   an introductory high line of the major thematic guided by the TOB work,

   o   a main body of work, delivered by a guest speaker, a lover of God’s work.

   o   suggested thematic for discussions 

   o   suggested complementary reading material.

Suggested models to deliver the TOB message

those who live by the spirit are exempt of the law

because the spirit is love, and love is the fulfillment of the law.

Model 1:

Each unit can be delivered in one day monthly event for a 6-month long project, suggesting the complementary readings to be followed up by independent groups biweekly.

Model 2:

Each unit can be delivered in two days monthly event for a 6-month long project; each biweekly event may contain the same thematic but delivered by different guests. Also, can be suggested the complementary readings to be followed up by independent groups biweekly.

Model 3:

Each unit can be delivered in two days monthly event for a 6-month long project in a biweekly event. The content of each unit may be split in two sections and may be delivered by different guests. Also can be suggested the complementary readings to be followed up by independent groups biweekly during the weeks were the speeches are not given.

unit 1 

The Words of Christ

Christ Appeals to the Beginning

Introductory TOB high lines:

1      -      Creation of Man (Ro 8:23)

2      -      Solitude - Man in search

3      -      Communion of persons

4      -      Shame

5      -      Spousal meaning of the body; Exchange of the gifts (Gen 2:25)

6      -      Knowledge and procreation (Gen 4)

Main Speaker: TBD

     *  There “is no doubt that man falls into this ‘torpor’ with the desire of finding a being similar to himself. …In this way the circle of the human person’s solitude is broken, because the first ‘man’ reawakens from his sleep as ‘male and female’”. (TOB 8:3)

     *  Becoming one flesh refers “without doubt” to the conjugal act (see TOB 10:2). But we must never always see in sexual difference, not only the call to joining of bodies, but to the communion of persons. (C. West, 2007)

     * Original nakedness demonstrates that “holiness has entered the visible world”. Holiness is what “permits man to express himself deeply with his own body… precisely through the ‘sincere gift’ of self.” It is “in his body as a man or woman [that] man feel he is a subject of holiness” (TOB 19:5)

     *  The spousal meaning of the body refers to the body’s “power to express love: precisely that love in which the human person becomes a gift and _through this gift_ fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence” (TOB 15:1)

      *  The first man and woman did not experience sexual desire as a compulsive urge imposing itself on them. Sexual desires arouse in the deep recesses of personal freedom and were experienced as a yearning to make a sincere gift of oneself to the other and to receive the other’s sincere gift. (C. West, 2007)

      *  It is the woman, in her exaltation “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen. 4:1) who expresses the whole theological depth of procreation. (C. West, 2007)

    *  ‘Despite all the experiences of his own life, despite the suffering, the disappointments in himself, his sinfulness, and, finally, despite the inevitable prospect of death, man always continues, however, to place ‘knowledge’ at the ‘beginning’ of ‘generations’; in this way he seems to participate in that first ‘vision’ of God himself: God, the Creator, ’saw everything … and indeed, it was good.’ And always anew he confirms the truth of these words” (TOB 22:7)

      *  All God creation is about love, union, and procreation. God created the universe out of pure love to sing us the Song of Songs. Sin is a denial of God’s gifts for us; we do not believe He’ll fulfill the most intimate desires of our hearts, so we wonder in life in the search to apace our hunger. (C. West 2011 CD1)

     *  Being a Christian is to be open in a passive way to receive God’s gifts for us. Mary was the first Christian, since she responded to God in this way. (C. West 2011 CD1)

     *  We clearly see that we do not know what marriage is when we see same-sex couples getting married. It is to say that the effort God took in creating the differences are meaningless, and we do no longer see that the desire for union is a desire for family. The Bible starts and ends portraying the union of man and woman. Jesus’ first action in his ministry is performing a miracle at a wedding feast. (C. West 2011 CD1)

      *  Evil never created anything. It can never exist in its own right. Evil is a mockery, a distortion, or simply, the lack of good. The absence of God is evil. We only overcome evil with good. We cannot give what we don’t have; when we do not have the Spirit of life in our hearts, the participation of God in our lives, we’re after one another for selfish pleasure to satiate our hunger. And cover ourselves for the degradation of lust. (C. West 2011 CD2)

     *  There are significant differences between man and woman. It is the man who initiates the gift of love. The woman receives the seed. Man has a particular responsibility to restore the balance of the gift of love; they have to make sure that the gift that they initiate is sincere. (C. West 2011 CD2)

      * Adam is in charge of the garden. The garden is the Church, and the Church the Bride of Christ. (C. West, 2014)

Suggested Guest speakers:

  TBD

Suggested thematic for discussion:

         -    God made humans as integral beings: heart, mind, and body. (Deut 6:5, 
      10:12, 30:6, Matt. 22:37, Mark 12:30-33, Luke 10:27.

         -      The relationship of spouses is the paradigm of self-giving love in human
       experience.

         -     The relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the source and model of
       all self-giving love.

         -      The human soul becomes divine through God’s participation.

         -      How can mere humans have a life-transforming experience of God?

          -  What does it mean to be human? Man and female.

          -  As sex goes, so goes marriage. As marriage goes, so goes the family. As the family goes, so goes the world.

          - Why sin seems to be attractive?

          -  What is the nature of evil?

          -  How can we overcome evil?

    - The differences on sexuality bring life and order; why leveraging them is the row to commit cultural suicide?

          -   Why is man particularly responsible for restoring the balance of the gift of love?

Suggested complementary readings:

-             -    About the man role, Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge, 2001

                -     About the women role, Captivating, by John and Stacy Eldredge, 2001

-              -    About the married woman role, A Gentle and Quiet Spirit, by V. Lefler, 2006
    -   and,  Fascinating Womanhood, by Helen Andelin, 1963

unit 2

The Words of Christ

Christ Appeals to the Human Heart

Introductory TOB high lines:

         1     The Sermon of the Mount (Matt 5:27-28) ‘adultery in the heart’

         2        The Man of concupiscence ‘man alienated from the original love’

a.       Insatiability of the union

b.       Loss of freedom

         3        Commandment: (Matt 5:27)

a.       ‘whoever looks to desire’

b.       Urge of nature

c.       Adultery In the heart

d.       Purity of heart as a fulfillment of the commandment

         4        The heart accused or called

a.       Manichaeism

b.       The heart under suspicion

c.       Eros

         5        Ethos

         6        Purity as ‘life according to the spirit’

a.       Spirit and flesh

Main Speaker: TBD

      *  The “heart” is the man’s deep interior self where he experiences the forces of good and evil fighting and competing against each other. (C. West, 2007)

     *  The heart is where we know and experience the true meaning of the body, or, because of the hardness of our hearts, fail to do so. (C. West, 2007)

      *  When we hope in God, our desires increase infinitely bigger than the universe. It is impossible for God to give a desire that won’t grant. Our hearts are too small to contain God; in trusting in God we expand our capacity to love. (C. West, 2014)

     *  In the Sermon of the Mount, Christ “assigns the dignity of every woman as a task to every man.” And “he assigns also the dignity of every man to every woman” (TOB 100:6) Upholding this dignity “is assigned as ethos to every man, male and female: it is assigned to his ‘heart’, to his conscience, to his looks, and to his behavior” (TOB 100:7)

     *  Christ’s words about lust are “an invitation to a pure way of looking at others, capable of respecting the spousal meaning of the body” (VS, n.15)

     *  Christ’s teaching about lust expresses this: “you’ve heard the objective law and what it calls you externally. Now I tell you what this means subjectively –what it calls you internally.” In other words, “you’ve heard the ethic. Now I call you to its proper ethos.” (C. West, 2007)

     *  In the new “ethos of redemption”, through ongoing conversion of heart, the subjective desires of the heart gradually come in harmony with the objective norm. (C. West, 2007)

      *  “The perfection of the moral good consists in man’s being moved to the good not only by his will but also by his heart” (CCC, 1775) and ‘by his sensitive appetite” (CCC, 1770). “All Christ’s faithful are to direct their affections rightly” (CCC, 2545)

      *  “For all that is in the world, the lust [concupiscence] of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 Jn 2:16:17)

     *  “Concupiscence refers to the disordering of our passions that resulted from original sin. As St. John indicates, concupiscence is broader than the disorder of the sexual appetite, but often refers to this. (C. West, 2007)

     *  Only when a person has engaged his will to follow the promptings of concupiscence has he sinned. Simply recognizing those promptings within one’s heart is not a sin. (C. West, 2007)

     *  It “is as if the ‘man of concupiscence’ …had simply ceased… to remain above the world of living beings or ‘animalia.’ It is as if he experience a specific fracture of the personal integrity of his own body, particularly in that which determines its sexuality” (TOB 28:4)

     *  If original sin is the denial of the gift, “faith, in its deepest essence, is the openness of the human heart to the gift: to God’s self-communication in the Holy Spirit” (DV, 51)

      *  The body and gender difference are now “blamed” for the rupture caused by sin, but this is a “cover up” – almost an excuse” not to face the disorder of the heart. (C. West, 2007)

     *  Shame “is a natural form of self-defense for the person against the danger of descending or being pushed into the position of an object for sexual use” (LR, p. 182)

    *  Lust “tramples on the ruins of the spousal meaning of the body and… aims directly… to satisfy only the body’s sexual urge.” As a result, the body “loses its character as a sign” (TOB 40:4)

      *  ‘Whoever would seek to justify himself by adherence to the law has no need for Jesus. He has cut himself off from Christ and fallen away from grace’ (Gal. 5:4)

      *  “Love and life according to the Gospel cannot be thought of first and foremost as a kind of precept, because what they demand is beyond man’s abilities. They are possible only as a result of a gift of God who heals, restores, and transforms the human heart by His grace.” Living the Gospel, then, is ‘a possibility opened to man exclusively by grace, by the gift of God, by His love” (VS, 23, 24)

      *  The Sermon of the Mount makes “the transfer or shift of the meaning of adultery from the ‘body’ to the ‘heart’” (TOB 38:1). “The look expresses what is in the heart. …Christ wants to show that man ‘looks’ in conformity what he is” (TOB 39:4)

      * A “Master of Suspicion” is a person who does not know or does not fully believe in the transforming power of the Gospel. We must be very careful not to fall into the trap of “holding the form of religion” while “denying the power of it” (2 Tim. 3:5)

    *  Eros is that “inner power that ‘attracts’ man to the true, the good, and the beautiful”. An “intoxicated and undisciplined eros”, then, is not an ascent in ‘ecstasy’ towards the Divine, but a fall, a degradation of man. Evidently, eros needs to be disciplined and purified if is to provide not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns” (Benedict XVI, DC, 4)

     *  Love “promises infinity, eternity –a reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence. Yet we have also seen that the way to attain this goal is not simply by submitting to instinct. Purification and growth in maturity are called for; and these also pass through the path of renunciation. Far from rejecting or ‘poisoning’ eros, they heal it and restore its true grandeur” (Benedict XVI, DC, 5)

     *  “Someone I was told, at the sight of a very beautiful body, felt impelled to glorify God the Creator. The sight of it increased his love for God to the point of tears. Anyone who entertains such feeling in such circumstances is already risen… before the general resurrection” (John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 15^th sept, 58, p. 168)

     *  Living “according to the spirit” refers to the man who lives a re-integrated life (soul and body) by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in his entire body-person. (C. West, 2007)

     *  “'It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail.’ In spite of appearances, these words express the highest affirmation of man –the affirmation of the body given life by the Spirit” (RH, 18)

      *  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mtt. 5:8)

     *  “To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure” (Ti. 1:15)

      *  Purity is connected with piety which is reverence for God’s designs. Unchastity is a violation of piety because the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19)

    *  “Even now [purity of heart] enables us to see according to God…; it let us perceive the human body –ours and our neighbor’s- as a temple of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of Divine Beauty” (CCC, 2519)

      *  Man must learn “to be the authentic master of his own innermost impulses, like a watchman who watches over a hidden spring, and finally able to draw from all these impulses what is fitting for ‘purity of the heart’” (TOB 48:3)

     *  “Purity is a requirement of love. It is the dimension of the inner truth of love in man’s heart’” (TOB 49:7)

Suggested Guest speakers:

 TBD

Suggested thematic for discussion:  

  -    We all know it is possible to
     follow rules without ever
     attaining holiness.

  -     What does it mean to be
     circumcised ‘in the heart’ in
     order to God to be able to
     dwell in our temple-body? 
     (Ez, 44:9)

  -     Why does sexual sin fragment
      the integrity of the human
      being? (1 Cor. 6:17-20 TMV)

  -      Why original sin does
      attempt to abolish
      fatherhood? (CTH, p. 228)

  -      If God “inspired” His spirit of
     love in us, how is it “expired” from our hearts and cannot be passed on to others? We cannot              give what we do not essentially have.

   -     Why the word of Genesis 3:16 seem to suggest that the appropriation of
     lust happens more at the woman’s expense and that in any case, she
     feels it more than the man? (TOB 33:3)
   -   Why does living the Gospel is a possibility opened to man exclusively
      given by grace?

           -    Why if we’re lead by the spirit we're not under the law? (Gal. 5:18)

          -    Why does following the rules do not change our hearts?

          -  Why the ‘flesh’ is the whole person (body and soul) cut off from God’s                   inspiration?

Suggested complementary readings:

         -     About holiness, Abandonment to Divine Providence, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, 1975

         -      About desire; the search of self, The Journey of Desire John Eldredge, 2000

         -     About desire; understanding human suffering in TOB by Adrian J. Reimers.

         -   About the body as temple of God, Ez. 10, 11, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 43, 44, 45.

         -    About the fight of body and will, law and spirit, Gal. 5:18, Ro 8 

         -     About the interior search, The Dark Night of the Soul, St John of the Cross
  -   About sin, Whatever Became of Sin?,  Karl Menninger, MD

unit 3

The Words of Christ

Christ Appeals to the Resurrection

Introductory TOB high lines:

         1        God is a God of the living

a.       The new meaning of the body

b.       The fulfillment of the spousal meaning of the body (1Cor. 15:42-49)

         2        Celibacy (1 Cor. 7, Matt. 19:11-19)

Main Speaker: TBD

      *  Our bodies will certainly be different in the resurrection (recall that the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus in his risen body), but we will still have them! (C. West, 2007)

       *  This means that the union of the sexes is not our be-all and end-all. It is only an ‘icon’. We must be very careful never to treat it as an ‘idol’ (C. West, 2007)

      *  Christ calls historical man to look in two directions –the beginning and the future. (C. West, 2007)

      *  The “Spiritualization” of man refers to the perfect indwelling of the Divine Person of the Holy Spirit. Hence, to the degree that eschatological man is “spiritualized” he is also “divinized.” (C West, 2007)

      *  The absence of marriage in heaven “is explained not only by the end of history, but also –and above all- by the ‘eschatological authenticity’ of [man’s] response to that ‘self-communication’ of the Divine Subject.” The “beautifying experience of God’s gift of self [will be] absolutely superior to every experience proper to earthly life. The reciprocal gift of oneself to God –a gift in which man will concentrate and express all the energies of his own personal and the same time psychosomatic subjectivity –will be [man’s] response to God’s gift.” This exchange “will become completely and definitively beautifying.” (TOB 68:2-3)

     * The spousal meaning of the body will be fulfilled in an eternal dimension of “incarnate communion” inclusive of all who respond to the wedding invitation of the Lamb. (C. West, 2007)

      * ‘That perennial [spousal] meaning of the human body, to which the existence of every man, burdened by the heritage of concupiscence, has necessarily brought a series of limitations, struggles, and sufferings, will then be revealed again… in [man’s] glorified body” (TOB 69:6)

       *  In this “union of communion” [of Saints] (TOB 68:4), we will see all and be seen by all. We will know all be known by all. And God will be “all in all” (Eph. 1:23)

       *  “Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person, in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is in its own proper form an actuation of the most profound truth about man, of his being ‘created in the image of God’ [as male and female]” (FC, 11)

       *  “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mtt 19:12)

      *  By doing so they step out of the dimensions of history –while living within the dimensions of history – to proclaim to the world that “the kingdom of God is here” (C. West, 2007)

       *  Christ’s “words do not express a command that is binding for all, but a counsel that regards only to some persons” (TOB 73:4) celibacy for the kingdom is “a kind of exception to what is, by contrast, a general rule of this life” (TOB 73:5)

     *  Christ’s words “clearly indicate the importance of the personal choice together with… the particular grace” of this vocation (TOB 73:4) They indicate celibacy’s voluntary and supernatural nature” (TOB 73:5)

      *  Celibacy emphasizes that man is called to be a “partner of the Absolute” –that his deepest yearning is not for the marriage of earth, but for the marriage of heaven. (C. West, 2007)

      *  The joyful celibate testifies that heaven is real. And it is worth sacrificing everything to possess. (C. West, 2007)

  * Everyone is called by Christ to overcome the domination of concupiscence through the redemption of the body. (C West, 2007)

      *  Celibacy is exceptional because marriage remains the normal calling in this life. It is “better” in the sense that the heavenly marriage is better than earthly marriage. It is also “better” only in the objective sense. Subjectively speaking, what is “better” for a person is the vocation to which God calls him or her. Hence, one must carefully and prayerfully discern which “gift” he or she has been given. (C. West, 2007)

      *  “Perfect conjugal love must be marked by the [same] faithfulness… on which religious profession and priestly celibacy are based” (TOB 78:4)

     *  “In order for a man be fully aware of what he is choosing (continence for the kingdom), he must also be fully aware of what he is renouncing” (TOB 81:2)

     *  The spousal meaning of the body reveals that the human person is created to be a gift “for” the other: man “for” woman and woman “for” man. (C. West, 2007)

      *  Every man is called in some way to be both a husband (self-gift) and a father (fruitfulness). Every woman is called to be both a wife (self-giving) and a mother (fruitfulness). (C. West, 2007)

Suggested Guest speakers:
   Br. John-Mary Johannssen St. Leopold Friary about the meaning of resurrection and living heaven on earth – mapping heaven according to the book of Revelations.

Suggested thematic for discussion:

         -     Why the phrase “theology of the body” is in some ways synonymous of the phrase “redemption of the body”? (TOB p. 111)

         -     What is the ‘spiritualization’ of the body, and how could be attained it?

         -     Why there will be no marriage bonds in heaven?

         -     What does it mean to be ‘fruitful’ from the spirit? (Matt. 1:20)

Suggested complementary readings:

        -      About the resurrection, The Lamb’s Supper, Scott Hahn, 1999 

unit 4

The Sacrament

The Dimension of Covenant and Grace

Introductory TOB high lines:

          1        Sacramentality of marriage (Eph. 5:21-33)

a.       Mutual submission ‘out of reverence for God’

b.       Beauty and holiness

          2        Reality of the gift – the meaning of grace

a.       Peter vs. Judas

          3        Sacrament and redemption of the body.

a.       Indissolubility of marriage

b.       Call to life according to the spirit

c.       Meaning of love

d.       Idols vs. icons

Main Speaker: TBD

      *  “In the letter to the Ephesians, we are witnesses… of a particular encounter of the [divine] mystery with the very essence of the vocation to marriage” (TOB 89:7)

      * Void of “the gift” the feminist revolt against Ephesians 5 is quite understandable. They see it as a surrender to tyranny, but we are not void of the gift! (C. West, 2007)

      *  The gift is the Christ came not to be served but to serve – to lay down his life for his Bride (Mtt. 20:28) God is not a tyrant! The “paradigm of master-slave is foreign to the Gospel” (CTH, p. 226)

      *  St Paul does not justify male domination. This is the result of sin (Gen. 3:16). He is actually calling husbands and wives to live “the gift” of God’s original plan in which there was a perfect balance, complementarily, and recognition of the equal dignity between the sexes. (C. West, 2007)

     *  Christians “must no longer live as the Gentiles do.” They are darkened in their understanding … due to their hardness of heart.” So put off “your old nature which …is corrupt through deceitful lusts, … and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:17-18, 22-24)

      *  To ‘submit’ to one’s spouse means to be ‘completely given’ (TOB 90:2) In turn, mutual submission means “a reciprocal gift” of self. When “Christ is the source and at the same time the model of that submission [it] confers on the conjugal union a deep and mature character” (TOB 89:4)

      *  When Paul says “be subject to your husbands as to the Lord” (Eph 5:22), he “does not intend to say that the husband is ‘master’ of the wife and that the interpersonal covenant proper to marriage is a contract of domination by the husband over the wife” (TOB 89:3)

     *  In imaging Christ and the Church, “the husband is above all the one who loves and the wife, by contrast, is the one who is loved. One might even venture the idea that the wife’s ‘submission’ to the husband… means above all ‘the experiencing of love.’ This is all the more so, because this ‘submission’ refers to the image of submission of the Church to Christ, which certainly consists in experiencing his love” (TOB 92:6)

       *  “The woman has a deep need to be beautiful when society tell her that she is not it wounds her in the heart” (C. West, 20014)

     *  ‘The holy Spirit turns the injury of past hurts into compassion and purifies the memory and transforms the hurt into intersession.” (C. West, 2014)

       *  Christ “gave himself up for her …that she might be holy and without blemish [immaculate]” (Eph 5:25-27)

      *  A beautiful body, for St. Paul, expresses spiritual beauty –holiness. (C. West, 2007)

      *  Christ loved his bride when she was full of the “blemishes” of sin and He took on her “ugliness” so that she might be “beautiful” (C. West 2007)

      *  “Love binds the bridegroom (husband) to be concerned for the good of the bride (wife): it commits him to desire her beauty and at the same time to sense this beauty and care for it. What is at stake here is also visible beauty, physical beauty.” (TOB 92:4)

      * Sacraments reveal spiritual mysteries through physical signs. Signs simply means the ‘visibility of the invisible” (TOB 95b:7)

      *  The sacrament and mystery [of marriage] remain in fact, ‘hidden –concealed in God himself- in such a way than even after its proclamation )or revelation) it does not cease to be called “mystery” … The sacrament consist in ‘manifesting’ that mystery in a sign that serves not only to proclaim the mysterious way, under the veil of a sign; nevertheless, that sign always ‘makes visible’ the supernatural mystery that is at work in man under its veil.” (TOB 93:5)

     * “At the center of the mystery of Christ. In him –precisely in him- humanity has been eternally blessed ‘with every spiritual blessing.’ …[T] he men and woman who accept through faith the gift offered to them in Christ really become sharers in the eternal mystery, although it is at work in them under the veils of faith …[N]ot only the fruits of redemption are a gift, but above all Christ himself is a gift” he gives himself to the Church as to his Bride” (TOB 94:5)

      *  God’s eternal plan is that Christ would “leave his Father” and be joined to His Bride in one flesh. Sin cannot and did not thwart this plan. God’s plan for man and for the universe continues despite sin. (C. West, 2007)

      *  When “man broke the first covenant with the Creator… marriage, as the primordial sacrament, was deprived of… supernatural efficaciousness… Nevertheless, …in the state of man’s hereditary sinfulness, marriage never ceases to be the figure of the sacrament… Can we not deduce that marriage has remained the platform for the realization of God’s eternal plans [preparing men and women] for the sacrament of redemption [and] introducing them into the dimension of the work of salvation?” (TOB 97:1)

     * “‘For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church” (Eph 5:31-32)

     *  The union of husband and wife in the totality of the “sacrament of creation” is the most ancient sign of the mystery. (C. West, 2007)

      * Marriage is in some way the model and prototype of all the sacraments. It is not only one in the list of seven. It helps us understand all of the sacraments. (C. West, 2007)

      *  The goal of all the sacraments is to unite us with Christ, the Bridegroom, so that we might be “impregnated” with Divine life. (C. West, 2007)

     *  It’s as if the original sacrament was “fracture” by the original sin into seven sacraments, all of which bear the mark of the “one and only sacrament” of the beginning. (C. West, 2007)

     *  The entire Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church. Already Baptism …is a nuptial mystery; it is so to speaks the nuptial bath which precedes the wedding feast, the Eucharist” (CCC, 1617)

      *  By “following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses …spouses will be able to ‘receive’ the original meaning of marriage and live with the help of Christ” (CCC, n. 1615)

      *  The sacrament of marriage is “an exhortation addressed to man, male and female, that they might conscientiously share in the redemption of the body.” Historical man “must find again the dignity and holiness of conjugal union… on the basis of the mystery of redemption” (TOB 100:4,6)

      *  It is the Holy Spirit who empowers spouses to live the Christian ethos of marriage. As much as lust distorts the human heart, even more so does the Holy Spirit transform and revive it. (C. West, 2007)

      *  “Just as ‘concupiscence’ darkens the horizons of interior vision and deprives hearts of the lucid clarity of desires and aspirations, so ‘life according to the spirit’ …allows man and woman to find again the true freedom of the gift together with the awareness of the spousal meaning of the body” (TOB 101:5)

     *  Marriage corresponds to the vocation of Christians only when it mirrors the covenant of love of Christ for the Church. We achieve this only by grace because what love demands, according to the Gospel, is beyond our abilities. But it is possible only as a gift of God who heals, restores, and transforms the hearts. (C. West 2011 CD3)

     *  Jesus came to the world in the nature of a servant, and He gave Himself for the Church. Jesus came to serve, and serve until death. When women ‘submit’ to their husbands, are allowing themselves to ‘be served’. Scripture are not against us, but for us. If the man meant to love his wife he has to work on an act of virtue of self-giving. (C. West 2011 CD3)

Suggested Guest speakers:

 TBD

Suggested thematic for discussion:

        -    How may a wife be ‘under-the-mission’ of her husband?

        -    How does the ‘mission’ of husbands in loving their wives as Christ loves the Church by ‘giving
    Himself for her' take shape?

        -    How the Holy Spirit does heal our past wounds for us to enter free of them into marriage?

        -     Christ gave his life for us so we can be beautiful and reach holiness. How can we attain these?

        -     How the Holy Spirit empowers spouses to live the Christian ethos of the marriage?

Suggested complementary readings:

        -      About Jesus is the 7^th lover; the Samaritan woman at the well, John 4:1-26

        -      About desire; understanding human suffering in TOB by Adrian J. Reimers.

        -      About the married woman role, A Gentle and Quiet Spirit, V. Lefler, 2006

        -      About a prayer life, Concerning the Our Father, by Simone Weil

        -      About prayer, At the Origin of the Christian Claim, Luigi. Giussani, 1998

        -      About prayer, The Way of Prayer; The Way of Perfection, St. T. of Avila.

unit 5

The Sacrament

The Dimension of the Sign

Introductory TOB high lines:

         1        The language of the body

a.       The body speaks the truth

         2        Song of Songs wonder

a.       ‘My sister, my bride’

         3        The Language of the body – Love as a test

a.       ‘this is my body’

         4        Loving as Christ loves the Church is loving in a FTFF way:

a.       Freely,

b.       Totally,

c.       Faithfully,

d.       Fruitfully

Main Speaker: TBD

      * Every sacrament has a specific sign (human dimension) that communicates the visible reality of grace (divine dimension) it signifies. (C. West, 2007)

       *  Just as the body is the sign of the soul, the “one body” spouses become is the sign in some sense of the “soul” of their married life. (C. West, 2007)

       *  “All married life is a gift; but this becomes most evident when the spouses, in giving themselves to each other in love, bring about that encounter which makes them ‘one flesh’” (LF, 12)

      *  The “consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two ‘becoming one flesh’” (CCC, 1627)

       *  God has given us the freedom to “author” the language of our own bodies. If can speak the “truth” with the body, we can also speak lies. (C. West, 2007)

     *  Man “is in some sense unable to express this singular language of his personal existence and vocation without the body. He is constituted in such a way from the ‘beginning’ that the deepest words of the spirit –words of love, gift, and fruitfulness –call for an appropriate ‘language of the body.’ And without this language, they cannot be fully expressed. We know from the Gospel that this point applies both to marriage and to continence ‘for the kingdom of heaven’” (TOB 104:7)

      *  For “every language …the categories of truth and untruth (or falsity) are essential for it. In the text of the prophets… the body tells the truth through faithfulness and conjugal love, and, when it commits ‘adultery’ it tells a lie, it commits falsehood’ (TOB 104:8)

       *  Spouses marry “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In so doing, they pledge through their sacrament to proclaim the Trinitarian language of their bodies faithfully. (C. West, 2007)

       *  Joy and profound inner harmony come to married life only when the ongoing “dialogue” of the language of the body is honest –when spouses are “true prophets.” (C. West, 2007)

      *  While “concupiscence …brings about many ‘errors’ in rereading the ‘language of the body’ …nevertheless, in the sphere of the ethos of redemption there is always the possibility of passing from ‘error’ to the ‘truth’… the possibility of … conversion from sin to chastity as an expression of a life according to the Spirit.” (Gal 5:16, TOB 107:3)

       *  The Song witnesses to a love that is simultaneously erotic and divine, spiritual and sensual, (TOB 111:5). The lovers in the Songs encounter spiritual realities by seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and even tasting each other (Song 1:12-14, 2:3-6, 4:10-5:1)

      *  In the integral view, attraction toward the body is attraction toward the other person…In addition; love unleashes a special experience of the beautiful, which focuses on what is visible, although at the same time it involves the entire person. The experience of beauty gives rise to [mutual] pleasure” (TOB 108:6)

       *  “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride; you have ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes… How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!” (Song 4:9-10) Calling her “sister” before calling her “bride” has a “particular eloquence” (TOB 109:4). It shows that the man’s desire is not one of lust but of love. (C. West, 2007)

     *  If the lover is to enter this garden, he cannot barge in or break down the door. Nor can he manipulate her into surrendering the key. (C. West, 2007)

       *  He must entrust himself to her freedom; she might refuse. This is the man’s risk. (C. West, 2007)

      *  He puts “his hand to the latch” (Song 5:4) only with her freely given “yes.” In total freedom (without any hint of coercion) she says: “I belong to my lover.” (C. West, 2007)

       *  Tobias sets his heart on God’s original plan for marriage. He calls her “sister”. He contrasts lust with the sincere gift of self. He knows that he needs God’s mercy to live the truth and he longs to spend his whole life with her. (C. West, 2007)

      *  In the face of authentic marital love, death has no chance. Life refuses to surrender!” (C. West, 2007)

      *  When spouses “unite as husband and wife, they… find themselves in the situation in which the powers of good and evil fight against each other.” The “choices and acts [of men and women] take the whole weight of human existence in the union of the two.” (TOB 115:2)

       *  “Thus, from the very first moment, Tobias’ love had to face the test of life-or death… Tobias (and Sarah with him) go without hesitating toward this test.” But in this test “life has the victory [because] during the test of the wedding night, love is revealed as stronger than death.” (TOB 114:6)

      *  The marital bed can be viewed as an altar upon which spouses offer their bodies in living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is their spiritual act of worship (Ro 12:1, CCC, 2031)

     *  A sacrament makes visible what is invisible. Men and women can live the sacramentality of marriage only by the grace of the Spirit of God indwelling in us. (C. West, 2011 CD1)

      *  When you have sexual encounters out of the bond of marriage you are saying something with your body that isn't true. (C. West, 2011 CD 3)

      *  Man is to love his wife such as Christ loves the Church. His love is expressed at the cross;

Ø  Freely: He lays his life on His own accord. (If we’ve meant to be prophets with our bodies, we cannot respond to hormonal changes that cannot control) This freedom is distinct to the freedom that evangelizes the world ‘do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want, however you want without ever saying NO.’ If you cannot say ‘no’ to your urges to merge, is this freedom or sexual addiction? If a man can’t say no to his sexual desires, His yes means nothing. Marriage does not make it okay for the use of one another.

Ø  Totally: with no reservations. (Contraception was created for us not to abstain, but for us to indulge in our lives).

Ø  Faithfully: Unreserved gift until the end.

Ø  Fruitfully: “so my Bride might have life to the full.’

   * A love that is free, total, faithful, and fruitful simply means marriage. A Christian vow is a promise that a couple made to love each other in this way; a gift until death. (C. West 2011 CD3)

  * A sexual union is a renewal of the marriage vows. A health stability of a marriage interns the family, that interns the neighbor-hood, that interns the community, that interns the city, that interns the state, that interns the nation, that interns the world; this is at stake. (C. West, 2011 CD 3)

Suggested Guest speakers:
   Br. John-Mary Johannssen St. Leopold Friary about the meaning of Jesus body in the communion.

Suggested thematic for discussion:

         -      How our bodies are prophetic? How can't possibly lie and ‘tell the true’?

         -      How the love described in Song of Songs is at the same time erotic
       and divine, spiritual and sensual? What do these characteristics tell about
       the nature of God?

         -      What is the significance of the author of the Song of Songs calling ‘my sister’
       before calling ‘my bride’ to the woman whom he loves?

         -      Why Tobias did not die in the wedding night?

         -      Why the marriage of Tobias is an example of purity of marriage?

         -      What is mercy, and why do we need it relation with God and others?

         -      What is grace, and why do we need it in relation with God and others?

         -      Why purity of love is ‘stronger’ and surpasses death?

         -      How the marital bed is an act of worship?

         -      Why humans can live the sacramentality of marriage only by grace?

         -      The test of love.

Suggested complementary readings:

         -      About the resurrection, The Lamb’s Supper, Scott Hahn, 1999

         -      About love; understanding of human suffering in TOB by A. J. Reimers.

         -      About the Song of Songs, Songs of Solomon, NIV

unit 6

The Sacrament

He Gave them the Law of Life as their Inheritance

Introductory TOB high lines:

          1        Ethics: responsible Parenthood

a.       Contraception

                                                               i.      Abortion

                                                             ii.      Pre-marital sex

                                                           iii.      Adultery

                                                           iv.      Divorce

                                                             v.      Unwanted child

                                                           vi.      Homosexuality

                                                         vii.      Pornography

                                                       viii.      Depression and Suicide rate

                                                           ix.      Fatherless society creates a violent culture

b.    Regulation of fertility

          2        Conjugal spirituality

a.       Power of ‘consecration’

b.       Arousal and emotion

c.       The gift of reverence

Main Speaker: TBD

       *  Every Christian denomination accepted contraception for the sake of sexual pleasure as it’s taken as happiness. (C. West, 2014)

       *  The use of contraception tells us that people don’t know who they are. (C. West. 2014)

       *  True followers of Jesus are those who are not afraid to share their wounds. (C. West, 2014)

       *  He states [Paul VI] plainly, in fact, that men and women cannot live this teaching without the help of God’s grace. (HV, 20)

       *  Large families should be the result of “prudence” and “generosity”, not abandonment to “chance.” (C. West, 2007)

     *  Responsible parenthood involves “common reflection and effort; it also involves [the parents’] consideration of their own good and the good of their children already born or yet to come, an ability to read the signs of the times and of their own situation on the spiritual and material level, and finally and estimation of the good of the family, of society, and of the Church.” (CCC, 2368)

      *  “The parents themselves and no one else should ultimately make this judgment in the sight of God” (GS, 50) This point is “of particular importance in determining …the moral character of ‘responsible fatherhood and motherhood” (TOB 121:2)

    *  Insert contraception into the language of the body and (knowingly or unknowingly) a couple engages in a counter-sign of the “great mystery” –an “anti-sacrament.” (C. West 2007)

     *  When “the conjugal act is deprived of its inner truth, because it is deprived [willfully by the spouses] of its procreative capacity, it also ceases to be an act of love.” (TOB 123:6)

      *  There is a vast difference between telling a lie and remaining silent. In fact, love often demands that couples ‘remain silent” that is abstain from the marital embrace. (C. West, 2007)

      *  HV is often accused of “biologizing ethics”, that is, of reducing ethics to biology. HV stands as a constant reminder that “biological laws… involve human personality” (HV, 10)

      *  Only the free man (the one who is master of himself) can love. (C. West, 2007)

      *  “In order to reach mastery over [one’s sexual] drive and arousal, the personal subject must devote himself to a progressive education in self-control of the will, of sentiments, of emotions, which must be developed from the simplest gestures, in which it is relatively easy to put in the inner decision into practice. This education obviously presupposes the clear perception of the values expressed in the norm and… firm convictions that give rise to the corresponding virtue… This is precisely the virtue of continence (self-mastery)” (TOB 128:1)

       *  “It is often thought that continence causes inner tensions from which men and women should free themselves. In the light of [our] analysis… continence, integrally understood, is, on the contrary, the one and only way of free oneself from such tensions” (TOB 129:1)

       *  Chastity is not only a moral virtue; it is also a gift of the Holy Spirit who fulfills us with profound “reverence” for what comes from God. St Paul had this gift in mind when he exhorted spouses to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21)

      *  Such an experience of Divine life (ecstasy) is not possible without a willingness to endure great suffering in union with Christ (agony). (C. West, 2007)

      *  The “gift of reverence for what is sacred” leads couples to be “full of veneration for the essential values of conjugal union.” (TOB 131:4,5) The conjugal union should express “veneration for the majesty of the Creator… and for the spousal love of the Redeemer” (TOB 132:3)

      *  “The attitude of reverence for the work of God, which the Spirit stirs up in the spouses, has an enormous significance for those’… manifestations [of affection]’ because it goes hand in hand with the capacity for profound pleasure in, admiration for, [and] disinterested attention to the … beauty of feminity and masculinity” (TOB 132:4)

       *  The gift of the Holy Spirit “initiates man and woman particularly deeply into reverence for the two inseparable meanings of the conjugal act… The gift of reverence… manifests itself also as a salvific fear… of violating or degrading what bears in itself the sign of the divine mystery of creation and redemption.” (TOB 131:5)

       *  “Therefore, the antithesis of conjugal spirituality is constituted in some sense, by the subjective lack of … understanding [of the exceptional significance of the conjugal act] connected with contraceptive practices and mentality.” (TOB 132:2)

      *  “We are facing an immense threat to life: not only to the life of individuals but also to that civilization itself… why is this happening? The reason is that our society has broken away from the full truth about… what men and women really are as persons. Thus it cannot adequately comprehend the real meaning of the gift of persons in marriage, responsible love at the service of fatherhood and motherhood, and the true grandeur of procreation” (LR, 20, 21)

       *  The reverence for what is sacred leads to couples to be full of veneration for the salvific fear of ever violating or degrading what bears in itself the sign of the Divine mystery of creation and redemption. (C. West, 2011 CD4)

    *  A fatherless culture grows a violent city linked with homosexuality. Contraception leads to singularize pleasure. “The pill has done more to re-ordered human life than any event since Adam and Eve ate the apple, because sexuality is so central in human life and into marriage and to the future of humanity.” (C. West, 2011 CD4)

Suggested Guest speakers:

    TBD

Suggested thematic for discussion:

        -      Why the practice of any type of contraceptive is an anti-sacrament?

        -      What are the consequences of practicing contraceptive methods?
- Regarding irreversible 
contraceptive methods: 
if sin is a self-determination action that lasts until a person repents; how can a person be sorry for the sin whose fruits he enjoys? (C. West, 2011 CD4)

        -     How may men and women participate and share in the creative power of God?

        -      What is a practical advice to attain self-mastery of sexual drive?

        -      How is the conjugal act of exceptional significance in relation to reverence to God’s work?

        -      How does contraception violate every commandment?

        -      Evil turned Eve’s womb into a tomb. (C. West, 2014)

        -      What does tell us when we see women seeking for men in sexual means?

        -      What is reverence?

 -      A fatherless culture grows a violent city. What’s the connection with homosexuality? (C. West, 2011 CD4)

Suggested complementary readings:

          -      About love, Love and Responsibility, Saint John Paul II, 1960

       -     About the journey of the interior life, Memory and identity, St. John Paul II 

References

        ·         Christopher West, Our Bodies Proclaim The Gospel. The Cor Project. DVD. 2011

        ·         Christopher West, Head and Heart Immersion Course. Theology of the Body Institute Study Guide. Downingtown, PA. 2007

        ·         Christopher West, Theology of the Body Explained: a Commentary on John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them. Daughters of Saint Paul, Boston, MA. 2007

        ·         The journey of the interior life, Memory and Identity, St John Paul II, by Christopher West.

        ·         Saint John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. Pauline Books and Media. Boston, MA. 2006

        ·         René Descartes, Discourse on the Method. 1637

        ·         New International Bible Version.

        ·         The Message Bible. Navpress Publishing Group. 2002

        ·         John Eldredge, Wild at Heart, 2001

        ·         Scott Hahn, The Lamb’s Supper, 1999

        ·         Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility. Ignatius Press, 1981

        ·          Understanding of human suffering and TOB by Adrian J. Reimers

        ·         Teresa of Avila, The Way of Prayer; The Way of Perfection.

        ·         Luigi Giussani, At the Origin of the Christian Claim, 1998

        ·        Simone Weil, Concerning the Our Father.

        ·        Virginia Lefler, Gentle and Quiet Spirit, 2006

        ·         John and Stacy Eldredge, Captivating, 2001

        ·         John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire, 2000

        ·         Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence, 1975

        ·         St John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul.

        ·         Catechism of the Catholic Church (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997)

        ·         St John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor. Encyclical Letter on the Splendor of Truth. Pauline, 1993.     

        ·         Saint John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Knopf, 1994.

        ·         Saint John Paul II, Dominium et Vivificantem. Encyclical Letter on the Holy Spirit. Pauline, 1986.

        ·         John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.

        ·         Saint John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis. Encyclical Letter on the Redeemer of Man. Pauline, 1979.

        ·         Saint John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio. Exhortation on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World Pauline, 1981.

        ·         Saint John Paul II, Letter to Families. Letter to Families in the Year of the Family. Pauline, 1994.